FLOATING

In 1889, Charcot's student Pierre Janet wrote the first book on what we now call PTSD, L'automatisme psychologique. In it he argued that trauma is held in procedural memory---in automatic actions and reactions, sensations, and attitudes---and that trauma is replayed and reenacted as visceral sensations (anxiety and panic), body movements, or visual images (nightmares and flashbacks).

---Bessel van Der Kolk, Found in the foreword of Peter A. Levine's book, Trauma and Memory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DREAM: Floating in the Waves. (August 25, 1992. Two years and Eleven months after my memory returned.)

I have gone someplace to be interviewed to be in a movie. I go upstairs and am alone in a room. There is a pile of black clothing, t-shirt type things, and black pants. I put them on, and while I am in this room some men arrive whom I am supposed to meet. I open the door to let them know that I am there and will soon come out.  

They say, "Don't worry, we are not going to rape you."

I walk out and find myself mesmerized by an enormous room. It is a huge sound stage with high ceilings. I am drawn to the place where movies are made. Four men are sitting around doing various things. There is a work table with a light on it. I walk past one man who is the producer. Lights on me. 

I am overwhelmed, and as I stand there. I start to float. I have this buoyant feeling and then I am lying in the ocean. There is no ocean, but I am feeling a surge of water on me. The invisible water comes in gently. I have been drugged.

I wake up and am afraid. 

 

While I typed this dream I became aware that my brain moved. It felt like I was starting to go into a trance, but the movement stopped. When this happened I felt I was right back where this dream took place, which was a recreation of something that happened to me. When arriving for a photographic session, actors take off their street clothes and underwear, and put on the comfortable black clothing that can be shed easily for the filming. When I step out of the clothes I would be nude.

These four men have appeared a number of times in my dreams.   

 

VOLUNTEERING AT A SOCIAL SERVICE RECEIVING HOME FOR ABUSED CHILDREN. 

February 28, 1992 - 5:45 to 8:45PM

This was my first day of volunteering. I was met at the front door by the director. He escorted me to the back of the unit where a young girl, studying to be a social worker, took over. She handed me an infant boy who was sleeping. He had a cold and his breathing was labored. 

Because it was noisy, I walked across the hall into an unlit room and sat down with the baby. I was there for only a few minutes when a teenage girl, I will call Dawn, came into the room complaining about the noise. She closed the door and sat in a chair next to me.

 “I'm going to Los Angeles in two weeks to an unwed mother’s home," she said.

"That will be nice."

"I don't want to go. Los Angeles girls are a bad lot and I am not looking forward to being around them. I'm almost eighteen and they are going to take my baby away when I have my birthday." 

"Who are they," I asked

"The system.They always tell me when I do bad things, but never when I do good things. My mother and father are abusive, and I don’t like where I am going to school. They are mean and don’t want me because I am pregnant.”

She was reading John Steinbeck's, Of Mice and Men, and a book about Greek Mythology, and could name gods and goddesses like you wouldn't believe. I was impressed with her intelligence, and told her I had a book at home she might like to read, and would bring it on my next visit.

When I put the baby on my shoulder she suggested I put a blanket in between the baby and me. "He might have fleas and lice and you never know when you will get some. I began to itch. 

While we were talking, a variety of people kept opening the door, looking at us, and then leaving it open. Dawn got up and closed the door each time. The noise was so loud we couldn’t hear each other. After a woman came in and sat down, Dawn left. 

“I’m a social worker, the woman said, and volunteers are not supposed to be alone with any of the children. What if you dropped the baby. We would be libel."

This explanation did not make sense to me. I expect the real reason was to protect both the volunteer and the child from behavior that might not be appropriate.

At this point, the older sisters of the baby came into the room. They were seven and five years old. They had just had their hair done and were about to be picked up by their new foster mom. They would be split up from their brother.

The social worker took the baby and I began to play with the two girls. We threw a ball of yarn around. When the older girl dropped the yarn, she became angry, and beat the floor with it. 

We then went into another room where we continued to play. When I included the younger sister in the game, the older girl got furious, came over and started to spank me, and called me a "fag." Then, she suddenly stopped, thought for a minute and decided to continue the game. I supposed she had been taking an anger management class, and had just applied a principle.

When the foster parent arrived, I asked if I could accompany the girls to the front door. After given permission, I started to walk down the hall, but thought to say, "Shouldn't they say goodbye to their brother?" The social worker asked the girls if they wanted to, and they ran back down the hall and kissed him goodbye. I was surprised that the social worker had not thought to do this. We then stopped at a little room which was full of toys and each girl got to pick a present. 

At the front door an attractive and well-dressed black woman greeted them and said, "Nice to meet you." The older girl did not respond, and had a look on her face that suggested she was not glad to meet her. However, she knew the routine and the two girls walked out the door. I would be surprised if this placement lasted very long.

I went back to the unit. Dawn was playing Nintendo with Ana, a dark-haired girl of the same age, who had just been admitted. Her face was red from being hit. I liked her immediately. There was a nice gentle and mature quality about her. She had called social services and gotten herself admitted, to get away from her abusive father and mother who were not protecting her. It was obvious she was depressed.

Another teenager girl came into the room. Her eyes were red from conjunctivitis. She had just taken a shower. Dawn left to take her shower, and I took over playing Nintendo. Ana beat the pants off me.

When I prepared to go home, Dawn looked disappointed. I told her I would return the next day.

At home I thought about the separation of the two girls from their bother. It is unlikely they would ever get back together. And, because of the anger issues of the older girl, she would probably end up in a group home.

To be continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daisies along the California coast.

Onward and upward.